An Age of Mysterious Memories

B 2 C 1: Reconciliation

As I once again look back, as I so rarely do, at my memory logs, I’m a bit perplexed. Who supposedly told me things, and caught me up on things? The closest I can figure is I must have been referring to myself as having been reading my family’s memory logs. Somehow, even deeper down than the subconscious I was buried under, so far from reality, something in my mind was still trying to keep up with those I love. Perhaps the furthest out it could reach is the mind’s eye inventory interface, where it would be able to access the logs. I mean, there’s no one else in my mind, right? Luni and Lil started to give me space as they’ve spent years together in our thinkspace once again.

Teuila flops down onto me, laughing that I’ve once again driven myself face first across quite a distance, smacking into a tree. I shakily, nervously hug her. The panic is still there, but I’ve only ever so recently rejoined the world around me. I think it was a day or two that I wandered away from the pond, trying to work up the courage to return. Only moments ago did I finally approach Teuila for the first time after returning. A split second ago I was skidding on my face, and turning to profess my love. Te can sense my anxiety, and knows she can’t help that another version of her is part of the cause. She does however sense my determination to face it. I’m so grateful for her understanding.

Come to think of it, a short while ago, I was mortified that I would be looked on as an outsider by my family if I tried to rejoin them. Yet, how could I ever even fear that? Even if that were the case, my family has only ever welcomed anyone with open arms. Not to mention, their love for me has been palpable, and professed on many-an-occasion. Lil, Luni, can you two hear me? Can you hear my thoughts? I know I haven’t reached out in so long, I’m so sorry.

“Buddy!” “Reggie!” Come exclamations from Lil and Lu across our shared wavelength. The joy that radiates from them as our emotions begin to sync up once again sets my soul alight. The soothing of my heart that comes from them causes me to laugh at my own fear. How could I ever have doubted these that I love the most? How could I possibly imagine that they’d have shunned me?

“I love you both. I’m so happy to be back.” I say, mentally, and accidentally slightly out loud.

“Both? Are you seeing double, dweeb?” Teuila’s reply causes me to blush with chagrin. Her endearing manner of using an insult as a form of affection still fills me with joy.

“No, no, not you.” I immediately regret the words as they leave my mouth. In response, Teuila huffs, grabs some grass, and tries to bean me in the face with it. When she can’t swing it as a weapon, she just throws handfuls of grass into my face, which causes me to sputter and laugh, so I can’t correct my reply right away. The longer this goes on, the more my anxiety melts into humor, as much as I don’t want Teuila to misunderstand, I can’t help but laugh for a good while, as I try to focus on the humor, letting it overcome the terror.

“Wait, wait wait, wait, hahaha, wait, that’s not what I meant! I meant I was talking to Lil and Lu, but I love you too!” I finally manage to explain, with Teuila straddling me and smearing my face with grass. The terror causes my legs to twitch and my heart to palpitate. It’s still there, under the surface, like a pressure with an endless flow. Sometimes a drip, sometimes a river.

How ironic is it that my life revolves so much around one river? A river that I’ve leaped into time and time again, hoping it spares my life, hoping it gets me out of a worse situation, and often it does. Not to mention that I have an aquatic family, and have had escapades near oceans and swamps and dams. I suppose it’s hard to have something be ironic, when one doesn’t know what to expect. When you don’t know what to expect, it’s hard to have those expectations subverted. Also, I will probably never learn to stop being distracted by thought. I didn’t notice as Teuila stood up, and took a running start. Since she’s now an instant away from connecting to my torso with a faux body slam, I can only hold my arms up in a mock terrified plea. It’s better than the real terror, that’s for sure.

Teuila however, remains light as a feather. Her special bond with gravity means that she can drop on people as a joke, like this, without injuring either of us. My arms shake uncontrollably, but I still manage to wrap them around her, letting my emotions catch up to me. I let the tears flow unabated.

For her part, Teuila strokes my hair, sifting through it, as she coos and shushes me. “Shh, my extraordinary goofball. It’s alright. It’s alright. I’m here, you’re here. We’re okay. We’re finally okay.” She almost seems to be trying to convince herself. I can barely imagine how hurt she was, or for how long. Yet here she is, struggling to be the strong one, to accept that it’s going to be a challenge to accept my love. Also struggling to still be here for me, through it all. While I’m the one struggling against terror, she’s the one struggling against not being able to comfort her loved one. She’s the one struggling against being the object of my terror.

“Huh, more white than I remember.” Teuila pulls more locks of my hair out in front of my eyes as she says this, then she continues. “I couldn’t get a close look, not since, well, back before then.” She scratches her forehead, furrows her brow, and avoids eye contact. When she does, I also spot significantly more white streaking the underside of her fur along where she scratched.

“Oh, oh Te, you too. White I mean, in your beautiful fur.”

“Hee, you think my fur is beautiful?” She slips into that exuberant single laugh as she insinuates she’s teasing me.

“Well, I mean, uh, err, well yeah, obviously, no sense denying it.”

“Ya big dork, hehe.” She sighs, and lays atop me, contentedly. I know she can feel me quivering as I fight back the fear. I’m finally back in control though, and I want to get our life moving forward, I want to start accomplishing our goals. But I can put that off for a little while to enjoy this. I’m hooked on this feeling, that of Teuila’s happiness being shared with me.

“Te? I, um. Back then. The longer the tether was active, the more it hurt. You said you could tell it was hurting me? It felt like literally there was sharp, barbed, razor covered wire sawing into my heart, yanking on it, by the end.” I nervously query, trying to skirt the thoughts that I know will trigger panic.

“Yeah. I remember. It wasn’t hurting me, but it felt like there was a string running from me to you, and that string was shaking like, like someone can only shake when they’re hurting real bad. I can’t explain it, it was a kind of feeling that said, on the other end of this line, someone is holding on, but barely, their hand must be bleeding, or something.” Teuila’s description sounds about right. The line felt like it was connected to my literal and metaphorical heart. Holding the line was excruciating, if it were my hand, my hand would have been shaking uncontrollably. I just find myself nodding at her answer.

“Oh, oh did I tell you? Well I guess I couldn’t have, maybe Lil or Lu did, did anyone tell you, that I got like, stabbed, skewered pretty much straight through with one of our own swords?” I don’t know why I was excited to share that. What is wrong with me? Teuila’s face screws up, her right eye twitches while her left eye shoots wide, raising the brow to extreme levels.

“You, you, you what!?” Teuila’s face is so incredulous, as she tries to shake her head, checking if she heard me right.

When I remember why I was excited, I continue, “Err, yeah, it was pretty bad. Oh, oh oh oh, right! Right right right, the reason why I asked, is because there was a potion that fixed it! Two in fact, from Octorochi. Though one of them I vomited up, because I was in so much pain.”

“Let me guess, since you threw that one up, you had to use both of them?” Her expression evens out quickly, she even sounds snarky.

Curious what Teuila is getting at, somewhat defensively I reply, “Yeah, sorta, it was more complicated than that. I uh, I can’t explain without, you know, why?”

My jaw drops as I realize what Teuila is about to ask, “Don’t suppose you learned how to make them before drinking them?” I facepalm, and burst into crying laughter.

Teuila similarly bursts into laughter, calling me out, “You, hahaha, you big dummy! Hahaha, only you. My sweet doofus. Only you. Heee.” Te’s laughter drops into that gleeful single elongated laugh as she expresses her affection for me. Her face enters a sort of ecstatically content closed-eyed smile. I think because she finally realizes she can share with me again, that she can express her affection for me, and it will be accepted, and returned. I know she thought, in the swamp, that I was the only one who got her so well.

I’m so happy. I’m so happy that I can pretend my rapid pulse is from joy, rather than terror, and that my quivering is a side effect of that. I’d better not try any tasks that require precise dexterity though, not for a long time. Slightly hyperbolically I don’t think I’ll ever stop shaking. That’s only a slight hyperbole though with the way I currently feel. Jeeze, could you imagine me trying to carefully prod something with a spear, or to stab a specific area, right now? Holding from the far end of the handle the point would be wobbling around like crazy.

As I try to plan heading in to finally see my family, an invisible force grips my heart, like an icy cold hand. “Um, Te? Can, um, can you, maybe, maybe please, maybe, help me face the fam?” I end up whispering and muttering by the end of my question. I know, deep down, that they won’t reject me, and actually Teuila’s presence is only going to keep me on terror’s edge. That doesn’t stop me from wanting her nearby however. Both physically and symbolically, I want to return to our family with Teuila.

Te doesn’t answer, which is concerning. I cock my head to one side, and she’s just looking up into the sky, out of my gaze. I can’t see her eyes or much of her face from down here. That’s when large teardrops begin falling on my face. Teuila suddenly looks down, and she’s, similarly to me the last time I was in the real world, ugly crying. Her lips quiver and wobble, slightly being chewed on by her teeth. Her eyes alternate between crying wide, and squeezing out tears. There’s snot dripping down her face. I’ve never seen her this vulnerable. I’ve never seen her feelings this exposed. Even just now she was trying to hide it before looking down at me.

Teuila kneels on my legs, and doubles over. She lightly pounds on my chest in slow motion, one strike from one fist, then a strike from the other. I feel my heart simultaneously breaking, and mending. I realize just now that she’s been muttering, whispering. “Dummy, fool, idiot, dork, butthead, jerk, nimrod, goofball, airhead, putz, doofus, bozo, bonehead, dippy, dingus, geek, goofus, dipstick, dweeb, lugnut, hoser, poser, bum, palooka.” She continues muttering further insults. Wow, wow she’s really going for it, she’s really calling me pretty much every name in the book, in every language that she can think of. I know I jokingly once questioned if she might do that, over the course of our life, but I never thought she’d try to do it all in one go.

I try really hard to stifle my laughter at the absurdity of her attempt. We could be at this for hours. Oh, now it hits me. I’m finally back. I can stay just hers, for a few hours. I lightly, shakily take her hands by the wrists the next time each of them come in to strike my chest. I flash Teuila a half of a furtive smile, and tug lightly. She acquiesces and falls atop me. She blows her nose all over my shoulder, but I don’t mind. We lay there, each of us shaking for different reasons from strong emotions. Hours pass during our embrace. Finally Teuila sniffs slightly, rubs her nose and starts to sit up.

As Teuila stands, she hauls me up by the hand. She mutters, “Come on poofbutt, let’s get you cleaned up.” I thought I’d heard them all, yet Teuila finds another insult to use to endearingly refer to me. It sounds like the whole family has gone into the cabin by this point, and while Teuila tries to lead me, I shake my head and take the lead.

Nervously, quaking through my entire body, I enter the cabin. Several family members somberly acknowledge my presence, either nodding, or just saying my name politely, seemingly not expecting me to be responsive.

I take another step into the cabin, lightly tugging Teuila by the hand to stand by my side as I nervously say, “H,H, Hi everyone.” Everyone other than Luni and Lil literally drop whatever they were doing, objects and projects clatter to the ground. Jaws drop to the floor, and in a moment, I’m surrounded, being showered with love. Luni and Lil just grin in the background. They already knew I was coming in, probably before I concluded to try.